Revolutionary-era soldier's skull found

By Frank Juliano, STAFF WRITER

Published
10:41 pm EDT, Monday, August 31, 2009

MILFORD -- A 1907 catalog of the New Haven County Historical Society listed several rare and odd items, including a necklace from an Egyptian mummy, slave chains and a small block of wood from the Old South Bridge in Concord, Mass., which the British guarded at the start of the Revolutionary War.

But lot 23 in the inventory -- "a skull of an American soldier, one of 42 who died of the 200 in a destitute and sickly condition that were brought from a British prison ship ... and suddenly cast upon the shore of the town of Milford on the 1st of January, 1777" -- has sparked contemporary patriots to ride to the rescue.

Local history buffs Gary Gianotti and Tom Beirne have tracked down the skull, which has been in the possession of the University of Connecticut's archaeology department in Storrs since the early 1990s, when a state law prohibited private museums from owning human remains.

Nicholas Bellantoni, the state archaeologist, will have students do a forensic study of the skull and write a report of its condition.

Bellantoni told Beirne that when that project is complete in mid-September, he would not oppose plans to return the skull to Milford "for proper burial."

City Historian Richard Platt said that although the remains of an American soldier who had been a POW and has been missing in action since 1777 have apparently been found, "we don't know which of the 46 it is. And none of the soldiers were from Milford."

Platt said that he also favors a proper interment for the soldier's remains. The most appropriate spot, local history buffs agree, is at the obelisk erected in 1852 in the Milford Cemetery that is believed to be over a mass grave for the victims. The 46 soldiers, not 42 as the 1907 inventory stated, died of smallpox, as did their caretaker, local merchant Steven Stow.

Stow is also believed to be buried with the Continental Army soldiers in what cemetery superintendent Raymond Scholl described as a long row of graves. Beirne said that a Milford resident who is a direct descendant of Stow has agreed to give a DNA sample so that it can be compared with the skull.

"There's a 1 in 46 chance that the skull belongs to Stow himself," Beirne said.

An account of the 1852 dedication also mentions that a time capsule was buried as part of the memorial, and the men have arranged for the monument and the grounds surrounding it to be X-rayed. That could happen as soon as this week, Beirne said.

Scholl said that once he had a man with a dowsing rod demonstrate his ability to find graves, and his skill was impressive. "He took a Y-shaped stick, that you normally use to find water, and was able to outline the grave. The stick pulled down to indicate where the borders were."

The time capsule had been forgotten, and no record of what is in it or when it was supposed to be opened can be found.

Perhaps recalling the highly publicized fiasco several years ago when Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone's vault and found it empty, the men say that any plans to open the time capsule will wait until X-rays confirm its existence -- and that something is in it.

As the superintendent, Scholl will have the responsibility of keeping the skull once it is turned over by the state and before it can be interred. "I've never had to do that before; it'll be a first," he said. Although the cemetery has a mausoleum-like repository for bones, "I'll probably keep the skull in my safe," the superintendent said.